Atheists, mostly male, show sexist side

Rebecca Watson meant it as a funny story, almost an aside. In a video
blog, the popular skeptic blogger recalled a man following her into an
empty elevator and inviting her up to his room after she spoke about
feminism at a European atheist conference last June.

Watson told
of rebuffing the advance with a bit of a laugh. Her blog and other
atheist/skeptic blogs were soon flooded with comments. Many women told
of receiving unwanted sexual advances at freethinker gatherings. Some
men, meanwhile, ridiculed Watson as overly sensitive or worse—or
threatened her with rape, mutilation and murder.

"I thought it was
a safe space," Watson said of the freethought community. "The biggest
lesson I have learned over the years is that it is not a safe space and
we have a lot of growing to do."

Before she knew it, Watson, 30,
was subsumed by what everyone now calls "Elevatorgate." And when
best-selling atheist author Richard Dawkins chimed in, the incident went
nuclear.

"Stop whining, will you," Dawkins wrote in one of three
comments on Pharyngula, a popular freethinker blog, contrasting her
experience with that of a fictional Muslim woman who had been beaten by
her husband and genitally mutilated. "For goodness' sake grow up, or at
least grow a thicker skin."

Now, months after "Elevatorgate"
erupted, freethinkers are assessing its meaning. Many acknowledge that
they have a "woman problem"mdash;men outnumber women at atheist
gatherings, both at the podium and in the audiences.

Yet many,
including Watson, say Elevatorgate is less a calamity and more an
opportunity to welcome women and other minorities into a community
that's long been dominated by white men. "The majority of e-mails I have
gotten have been from men who said, 'I had no idea what women in this
community went through, and thank you for opening my eyes,'" Watson
said. "There has actually been a net benefit coming out of this that I
think has made everything worthwhile."

No one is suggesting that
the free­thought community is more sexist than other segments of
society—after all, the most famous American atheist, the late Madalyn
Murray O'Hair, was a woman.

Nonetheless, the incident has struck a
chord, perhaps because atheists and other skeptics pride themselves on
reason and logic—intellectual exercises that theoretically lead to
convictions about equality. The problem, they agree, is long-standing.
Women veterans of the movement recall meetings in the 1970s where 80
percent of attendees were men.

"I think the essential problem that
women have in the movement is that they are greatly outnumbered," said
Susan Jacoby, author of Freethinkers. "When you talk about women
atheists, there is less of a pool than men. Women are more religious
than men, therefore there are fewer women active in this movement than
there are men."

But that is slowly changing. The 2008 American
Religious Identification Sur­vey found a 60-40 percent breakdown among
men and women who say they have no religion. Yet women make up 52
percent of the broader population.

Annie Laurie Gaylor,
copresident of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, notes that while
men might fill their gatherings, women often lead freethought
organizations. She has directed FFRF's local chapters to use more
women—at least 50 percent—in their billboard and bus banner ads. "We
want to be proactive and make sure there is diversity," she said. "The
movement is big enough now."

That aim is reflected in a new "Women
in Secularism" conference announced in August by the Center for
Inquiry. The conference, billed as the first of its kind, will be held
in May in Washington, D.C., and will feature an all-female lineup.

"A
lot of us think it is long overdue," said Melody Hensley, executive
director of the center's Washington office and organizer of the event,
which will include Jacoby, Watson and Gaylor. "If you have women
leaders, you are going to have more women. So this conference is a step
forward to attract more women to the cause." —RNS